A tenuous hold on rebel region

by Frank Bajak - Aug. 8, 2010 12:00 AMAssociated Press

LA MACARENA, Colombia - In May, suspected urban guerrillas took three shots at gravedigger Jesus Antonio Hernandez at his corner store. In July, they tried to set fire to his house. Repeatedly, they telephone him with death threats.

Hernandez's job has put him at the perilous center of Colombia's long-running conflict with rebels, as the government tries to hold on to this remote, wild region with a model counterinsurgency program supported by the U.S.

If the program can successfully anchor the state - police, justice, schools, roads, jobs - in a lawless backwater like the Macarena region, the thinking goes, it could work in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Those security gains remain fragile, however, presenting one of the biggest challenges to Colombia's new president, Juan Manuel Santos, who vowed in his inaugural address Saturday to cement them.

"We will not rest until the rule of law reigns in each and every hamlet and village of our nation," Santos told a crowd of 5,000 in Bogota's central plaza.